In many accounts of creative acts visual metaphor or analogy—‘seeing as’— plays a key role, for example Kekulé’s seeing benzene’s carbon ring structure as a snake biting its tail, or Faraday’s seeing the universe as patterned by “lines of force,” which led to the electric motor (Koestler 1964). The use of analogy and metaphor features prominently in many discussions of design methods and processes, e.g. (Heath 1984; Rowe 1987).
“Analogic design,” says Broadbent, is the “most potent source of creative ideas in architecture.” (Broadbent 1973; p 35). Architects are visually oriented and are taught to think graphically (McKim 1972; Laseau 1980).
For architects therefore visual analogies are especially important and are commonly used in professional design education. Pictures and sketches of design analogs appear frequently in studio presentations. Instructors encourage students to use analogy in developing creative designs (“think of your building as a string of pearls”), applying the analogy to drive the shaping of physical form (“the rooms are pearls, a connecting path the string.”) This particular analogy is used not only in design pedagogy, but also in design practice. For example, Frederick Law Olmstead described his design for a connected system of parks around Boston, Massachusetts as an “emerald necklace.”